Michael Ruiz

The primary challenger to longtime DemocraticNew York City Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney sent out a fundraising email Thursday that declared, “F&$# THE POLICE.”

“We are living the results of a completely broken criminal justice system,” the email from the Lauren Ashcraft campaign begins.

Ashcraft, a self-described people-powered progressive Democrat, is one of three long-shot primary challengers seeking to replace Maloney in a heavily Democratic district — similar to how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unseated longtime incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in a primary upset victory two years ago.

One of Ashcraft’s key campaign platforms is criminal justice reform, and in a statement to Fox News, she doubled down on her position.

“The entire criminal justice system is racist,” she said, “This is about the country needing rigorous criminal justice reform.”

She slammed lawmakers in both parties for their approach to the issue over the years.

“We constantly see videos of black people being attacked and killed,” she said. “Police are murdering those they are sworn to protect. Republicans and Democrats alike — including Rep. Maloney — have failed to enact common-sense reform. Instead, they’re responsible for destructive policies such as the 1994 Crime Bill.”

For her part, Maloney, who helped spearhead the push for federally funded benefits for New York City’s first responders in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, has publicly supported a slew of House proposals that aim to achieve criminal justice reforms similar to the ones Ashcraft singled her out in the email for not co-sponsoring.

Malone posted a list of them in a lengthy Twitter thread on Wednesday, a day before Ashcraft’s fundraising email went out.

“To meet this moment, Congress must do more than decry these wrongs,” Maloney tweeted. “We must act.”

Among the proposals she said she supports is a resolution explicitly condemning police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, which was introduced by “Squad” members Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar, along with Reps. Karen Bass and Barbara Lee.

Another was a bill introduced by fellow New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries that would forbid police from using chokeholds.

Floyd died in police custody on May 25 — and part of the incident recorded on video showed an officer kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes. Eric Garner died in New York City in 2014 after an NYPD officer restrained him with a chokehold in another incident caught on video.

“As soon as I talked to the family and got the details and heard that among George’s last words was ‘I can’t breathe,’ with a knee on his neck, I immediately thought about Eric Garner,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said as he delivered a eulogy for Floyd in Minnesota Thursday.

Floyd’s death sparked a wave of protests against police violence across the country, which both candidates have said they support.

Maloney was first elected to Congress in 1992. Her chief accomplishments include the Zadroga Act and its subsequent reauthorizations, which secured compensation and health care for first responders and others suffering from 9/11-related illnesses. She also authored the Debbie Smith Act, which increases funding for law enforcement to process DNA rape kits, according to her campaign website.

The other primary challengers are Suraj Patel, a lawyer and educator whom Maloney defeated in a 2018 primary challenge, and Peter Harrison, a tenants’ rights advocate.

Also on Thursday in an unrelated tweet, President Trump blasted a push by people he called “Radical Left Democrats” amplifying calls to “defund the police.” Instead, he said he supports increasing money spent on law enforcement.

Is former Vice President Joe Biden’s inner circle too white? Some Democrats are worried it is, according to a New York Times report — even as his presidential campaign is actively adding a diverse group of high-level advisers.

Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, fended off primary competition carried by strong support from African-American voters in the South.

He also served two terms as vice president to the country’s first black president, Barack Obama.

FILE – Former President Barack Obama speaks, standing next to then-Vice President Joe Biden, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

“If you look at the traditional inner circle, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of voices of color around the table,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a high-ranking House Democrat who is African-American, told the newspaper.

There’s Symone Sanders, a senior adviser who also famously tackled a protester who tried to rush Biden on stage at a rally on Super Tuesday. And Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond is reportedly another close adviser. Both of them are black.

“The team is not built out yet,” Richmond told the Times. “We absolutely are cognizant of how it looks. We believe that optics show values and we’re going to continue to strive to get it right.”

And two recent hires include veteran Obama strategists Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who is Hispanic, and Karine Jean-Pierre, who is black, the report noted.

Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s 2020 campaign manager, tweeted last month that the two would work on more than just minority outreach and are “no more here to work only on voters who look like them than I am.”

“People of color have power here,” Sanders told the paper. “When it comes to the purse strings, when it comes to access, when it comes to strategy, when it comes to messaging.”

And the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee has already promised to choose a female running mate and nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court.

Still, some in the party see underrepresentation from African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic demographics in Biden’s close proximity as potential campaign weaknesses, according to the report.

Biden also brought backlash upon himself last month following an interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God during which he said, “I tell you, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or [President] Trump, then you ain’t black.”

That and other missteps have raised concerns.

As Fox News’ Juan Williams noted in an op-ed that also appeared in The Times this week, African-American voter turnout in key swing states could have a major influence on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

“Joe Biden would be retired if not for the black vote,” Williams wrote.

A massive crowd of protesters packed the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City Thursday afternoon, prompting police to shut down Manhattan-bound traffic.

Aerial video showed the size and scope of the demonstration as marchers, some carrying signs and banners, made their way over both the pedestrian space and the three-lane-wide span for vehicle traffic.

The march came after a memorial service at Cadman Plaza for George Floyd, who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

Some photos showed a masked man holding an American flag raised upside-down on a handheld pole.

Elsewhere in the city, thousands of people gathered outside the mayor’s official resident at Gracie Mansion for another demonstration, as seen in videos posted to social media.

Images of that scene show protesters sitting, peacefully but in the middle of the street.

But Mayor Bill de Blasio wasn’t there. He attended the Floyd memorial in Brooklyn, where some in attendance met him with boos and called for him to resign.

Minnesota prosecutors on Wednesday upgraded the charges against Derek Chauvin, one of four Minneapolis police officers fired after Floyd’s death, to second-degree murder. The other three officers involved — Thomas Lane, J.A. Kueng, and Tou Thao — were taken into custody Wednesday night and charged with two counts of aiding and abetting and second-degree murder.

The Department of Justice is awarding nearly $400 million in grant funding for almost 600 state and local police departments to hire more officers as part of a federal community policing program, the U.S. Attorney General’s office announced Tuesday.

“The Department of Justice (DOJ) is committed to providing the police chiefs and sheriffs of our great nation with needed resources, tools and support,” Attorney General William Barr said in a statement. “A law enforcement agency’s most valuable assets are the men and women who put their lives on the line every day in the name of protecting and serving their communities.”

The funds will come from the DOJ’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (also known as the COPS Office) and its associated hiring program.

The focus of the COPS Office is to enhance trust and mutual respect between law enforcement officers and the communities that they serve. Since the mid-1990s, the office says it has invested more than $14 billion in departments around the U.S. — but the latest round of funds from the long-standing program comes as communities across the country see protests and unrest in the wake of the death of George Floyd, which happened while he was in police custody in Minneapolis.

In total, local law enforcement agencies will be able to hire up to 2,732 full-time officers with the funds, the DOJ said in a press release.

The COPS Office funding can also be used to help state and local departments improve their community policing strategies and to rehire laid-off officers.

A law enforcement agency’s most valuable assets are the men and women who put their lives on the line every day in the name of protecting and serving their communities.

— Attorney General Bill Barr

The new officers will all have to pass a background check, according to the COPS Office.

Law enforcement agencies had to apply for the program and were required to show a specific crime problem in their community and explain how they would use the funding to address it through community policing.

More than 1,100 departments applied, and 596 were selected to receive grants this year.

The money will cover 75 percent of a new or rehired officer’s salary for three years.

Some of the departments receiving funding are in big cities such New York, which received more than $11 million for 100 officers; Cincinnati, with more than $10 million for 86 officers, and Houston, with more than $8 million for 71 officers.

Many smaller departments will receive grant money for a single officer.

The Department of Justice is awarding nearly $400 million in grant funding for almost 600 state and local police departments to hire more officers as part of a federal community policing program, the U.S. Attorney General’s office announced Tuesday.

“The Department of Justice (DOJ) is committed to providing the police chiefs and sheriffs of our great nation with needed resources, tools and support,” Attorney General William Barr said in a statement. “A law enforcement agency’s most valuable assets are the men and women who put their lives on the line every day in the name of protecting and serving their communities.”

The funds will come from the DOJ’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (also known as the COPS Office) and its associated hiring program.

The focus of the COPS Office is to enhance trust and mutual respect between law enforcement officers and the communities that they serve. Since the mid-1990s, the office says it has invested more than $14 billion in departments around the U.S. — but the latest round of funds from the long-standing program comes as communities across the country see protests and unrest in the wake of the death of George Floyd, which happened while he was in police custody in Minneapolis.

In total, local law enforcement agencies will be able to hire up to 2,732 full-time officers with the funds, the DOJ said in a press release.

The COPS Office funding can also be used to help state and local departments improve their community policing strategies and to rehire laid-off officers.

A law enforcement agency’s most valuable assets are the men and women who put their lives on the line every day in the name of protecting and serving their communities.

— Attorney General Bill Barr

The new officers will all have to pass a background check, according to the COPS Office.

Law enforcement agencies had to apply for the program and were required to show a specific crime problem in their community and explain how they would use the funding to address it through community policing.

More than 1,100 departments applied, and 596 were selected to receive grants this year.

The money will cover 75 percent of a new or rehired officer’s salary for three years.

Some of the departments receiving funding are in big cities such New York, which received more than $11 million for 100 officers; Cincinnati, with more than $10 million for 86 officers, and Houston, with more than $8 million for 71 officers.

Many smaller departments will receive grant money for a single officer.

The state said it recently improved the official status of the nation’s most iconic birds from “threatened” to “special concern” within its borders.

While state and federal laws have been established to protect bald eagles from human interference, the birds can fiercely fight for territory with each other and additional airborne predators.

This year also marked the first documented sighting of bald eagles nesting on Martha’s Vineyard, MassWildlife said in a press release — but the eggs in that nest cracked in a battle between the eagle pair and two ospreys.

In other territorial disputes, a rogue eagle invaded other nearby areas and killed chicks in two additional nests on the mainland, MassWildlife said.

Authorities said the rise in active nests and the territorial incidents are “signs of a thriving eagle population in Massachusetts.”

Just a few decades ago, they were in danger of extinction due to habitat destruction, poaching and the contamination of their food supply with chemicals such as DDT, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Over the past several decades, bald eagle numbers have rebounded, and the Fish and Wildlife Service says they are “an Endangered Species Act success story.”

They’ve made a strong resurgence in areas across the country, according to authorities in multiple states.

Ohio authorities announced last month that the bald eagle population there has soared by 151 percent since the last statewide headcount eight years ago. And the Arizona Game and Fish Department shared what it said were the first known photos of bald eagles nesting within the arms of a saguaro cactus taken in the state — a scene that hadn’t been documented with pictures since 1937.

Wildlife authorities say birdwatchers should observe eagles from at least 100 yards away, as approaching a nest could lead parents to abandon their eggs.

Demonstrations continued over the death of George Floyd in the Twin Cities Thursday, with protesters launching various objects at St. Paul police vehicles and looters striking local businesses.

Floyd, a black man, died in police custody earlier this week after a white police officer appeared to pin him to the ground with his knee for several minutes.

St. Paul police wrote on Twitter that officers encountered looters and vandals near the Target store on University Avenue and elsewhere. Police said they were met with protesters hurling rocks, liquor bottles and bricks.

Sarah Danik, a reporter for the local Fox 9 TV station, shared images Thursday that she said were taken at the scene beginning around 3 p.m. They show crowds of masked protesters and police officers, and crashing or banging noises can be heard in some of the videos. In one image, a cloud of smoke, which she identified as tear gas, is seen rising from the sidewalk.

“Officers are giving dispersal orders to groups gathered in various areas of the city, damaging property and attempting to steal from businesses,” the St. Paul Police Department tweeted.

By 4:30 p.m., Danik tweeted that the crowds had dispersed, and she posted a photo that showed a small fire burning in the parking lot near a police vehicle.

“Please keep the focus on George Floyd, on advancing our movement, and on preventing this from ever happening again,” he tweeted. “We can all be in that fight together.”

On Wednesday night, looters ransacked a Target store off East Lake Street in Minneapolis, which is near the city police department’s 3rd Precinct building, according to Fox 9.

Gov. Tim Walz activated the National Guard early Thursday evening to help respond to violence stemming from the protests. He also urged demonstrators to act “peacefully and safely.”

A protester runs away from where police deployed chemical irritants near the 3rd Precinct building in Minneapolis on Wednesday, May 27, 2020, during a protest against the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody earlier in the week. (Christine T. Nguyen/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)

In the video that prompted the protests, which was released earlier this week, Floyd pleaded for his life and said he couldn’t breathe. Numerous bystanders asked the responding officers to take the pressure off of his neck and check his pulse.

“If President Trump doesn’t like Twitter, he can do everyone a favor and stop tweeting,” the Democratic senator tweeted.

The disagreement grew out of Twitter’s decision this week to fact-check one of President Trump’s tweets – the first time it has done so.

On Thursday, which the president declared would be a “big day for social media and fairness,” a draft leaked of an executive order that would curtail some of the legal protections social media platforms enjoy that traditional media platforms do not.

It aims, in part, to crack down on freedoms given to Internet outlets in a 1996 federal law that says they cannot be considered “the publisher or speaker” responsible for third-party content posted to their platforms.

Despite Schumer’s swipe at Trump’s Twitter usage, other Democratic leaders have criticized social media outlets and their handling of information posted to their platforms.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday argued that Twitter hadn’t gone far enough with its fact-check of the president, and she also accused Facebook of pandering to the White House to maximize its profits.

“Facebook, all of them, they’re all about making money,” she said. “Their business model is to make money at the expense of the truth and the facts that they know. And they defend that.”

And former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic 2020 presidential nominee, told the New York Times in January that the section of that 1996 law that now protects social media companies “should be revoked.”

It’s unlikely that the law can be fully undone by executive order alone.

What can everyday Americans learn from a crew of seasoned adventurers who survived after having to jump ship off the coast of Antarctica more than 100 years ago?

How to maintain good mental health amid the stress of the coronavirus pandemic, according to some experts.

“Although their worlds were very different from ours, their experiences are highly relevant to us today,” Ron Roberts, a psychologist and professor at Kingston University London, told National Geographic in a recent interview. “Humans still have the same basic needs for contact, communication, and physical movement.”

File photo – The ‘Endurance’ among great blocks of pressure ice during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914-17, led by Ernest Shackleton.(Photo by Frank Hurley/Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge/Getty Images)

The famed explorer Ernest Shackleton, in command of the ill-fated Endurance, told one of his crew members to fetch his banjo before they left the doomed ship, according to the magazine.

He wanted to keep morale up when they set out onto the ice — reportedly saying that music is “vital mental medicine.”

The crew had been instructed to carry no more than 2 pounds per man, according to National Geographic, but the banjo — weighing 12 pounds — was an important exception because Shackleton believed that the music would keep his men’s spirits high.

There are also other, more recent examples of methods for coping with polar isolation that can compare to social isolation amid the pandemic.

As Fox News has reported, Sunniva Sorby of Canada and Hilde Fålun Strøm of Norway spent more than nine months in isolation near the North Pole — practically missing the entire pandemic while struggling to overcome bitter cold, the elements and frequent visits from polar bears.

The two women frequently posted to social media from their trapper’s cabin in a Norwegian preserve, where they had no running water and little electricity. They also said they brought a dress and pair of heels each — impractical for the climate — just to feel a little bit of normalcy on special occasions.

“The ones who survive with a measure of happiness are those who can live profoundly off their intellectual resources, as hibernating animals live off their fat,” wrote Admiral Richard Byrd, who spent an Antarctic winter alone in 1934.

His key to success was keeping busy — evening while he was eating, according to National Geographic.

“I fell into the habit of reading while I ate,” he claimed in his memoir. “In that way I can lose myself completely for a time. The days I don’t read, I feel like a Barbarian brooding over a chunk of meat.”

But there’s a difference between planning ahead before spending time in isolation, as Sorby, Strøm and Byrd all did, respectively, and having it forced upon you by a shipwreck or a global pandemic.

According to the magazine, as the Endurance sank into the ice, Shackleton turned to his crew and said: “The ship’s gone, the stores are gone… so I guess we’ll go home.”

Roberts called that “Shackleton’s genius.”

“He was able to instill hope, belief, lay out a vision for a happy ending, and deliver a believable plan for achieving it,” Roberts told National Geographic. “As we think about what the future holds in a post-COVID world, that’s going to be the yardstick by which our present leaders are measured.”

With an eye toward that post-COVID world, President Trump has been vocally hopeful in response to the stifling coronavirus shutdown, recently tweeting: “There will be ups and downs, but next year will be one of the best ever.”

Montney told KRDO that Copper Stallion threatened to sue him for defamation in response to the review.

After the threat of a lawsuit, Montney told his story to local media. He did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.

But things began to escalate after the local stories.

A pair of identical websites have appeared under Montney’s name and are written as though they are the work of Copper Stallion in an effort to defend itself from criticism over the incident.

Copper Stallion Media did not immediately respond to requests for comment made to its last available phone number or through email.

The company’s website is still up, but it does not list an address, phone number or the owner’s name.

Its social media accounts have been shut down or hidden, including its presence on TheKnot.com. But Denver7 obtained a screenshot of a post that it reported appeared on Copper Stallion’s Facebook account while it was still active.

“Today would have been the day where we would have filmed Justin and Alexis’ wedding in Colorado Springs,” the text in the image begins, attached to a photograph of the couple. “After what Justin pulled with the media stunt to try and shake us down for a refund, we hope you sob and cry all day.”

The last line reads, “Sorry, not sorry.”

Both of the websites recount a version of the refund saga and refer to Montney’s TheKnot.com review and subsequent appeal to the media for help as “the smear campaign.”

But it’s unclear who exactly created them, just like it’s not immediately clear who is behind Copper Stallion. Justinmontney.com is registered through Domains By Proxy, LLC, a GoDaddy subsidiary service that allows web domain owners to keep their identities secret. An identical site at justinmontneywedding.com is registered through Wix, a popular cloud-based web development service. Neither listing reveals the name of an individual or company running the site. Copperstallionmedia.com uses the same Wix nameservers as justinmontneywedding.com and is registered through Network Solutions LLC — another web services and domain company.

“We understand a death occurred, but it’s not right for people to turn to the internet and sodomize the reputation of a company,” begins one section of the “Montney” pages. “He could have quietly filed a small claim to ‘try’ to recoup the non-refundable deposit. Instead, he chose the internet to shake us down.”

An Internet search for Copper Stallion turns up a number of mixed reviews – some recent, referencing the rush of media attention. But some are from months ago – including one from a videographer who claimed that Copper Stallion refused to pay him for work.

Denver7 said it spoke with a former Copper Stallion videographer who said the company refused to pay him.

Alex Murphy told the outlet that he eventually received his check, months late – but it wasn’t from Copper Stallion Media, it was from a company called Organized Weddings LLC, which the channel said uses an address linked to someone named Jesse Clark.

Jesse Clark is the name of a Massachusetts wedding videographer who was sued by the state’s attorney general in 2013 for allegedly ripping off 90 couples, accepting payments and failing to provide their videos, according to the Telegram & Gazette. Separately, he was also sentenced to two months in jail in connection with an assault case and has suffered from documented mental health issues, according to the outlet.

Despite the state’s lawsuit, jail sentences, probation and a court injunction in January 2013, Clark was accused again of continuing to operate online wedding businesses in April of that year, according to the report.

Speaking with the Telegram about Clark in 2013, Nicholas Frye, a lawyer for several victims, claimed: “As long as he has access to Internet, he’s going to be stealing money from unsuspecting couples. It’s most definitely going into a PayPal account and going somewhere.”